Top 10 Weirdly Racist Video Games

The most embarrassing thing about being a gamer today is definitely other gamers. We, as a culture, decided somewhere that racism and rampant misogyny was okay because something something, and no one bothered to point out that “something something” isn’t a real argument because we’re all a bunch of whiny, entitled, weirdly racist brats.

Did you hear that, gaming culture? Shut up. You’re acting like a child. Now go to your room. Also, stop being racist.

10. Dead Rising 2

Dead Rising 2 is a simple game: you hit zombies with things until they die, and you meet wacky characters that you get to save. One of these characters is LaShawndra, a woman of both size and color who, after you meet her, begins immediately complaining, in African-American Vernacular English no less, about how her husband has run off. Through a combination of her sass and… um, more sass, she manages to save her husband’s “skinny ass,” and greets him with a punch in the face and a fake, half-hearted apology.

If you’re keeping track, that’s exactly how stupid white people who have never met a black person think black people act.

9. The Legend of Zelda Series

The Legend of Zelda is a series of video games, started 26 years ago and still going strong. It tells the story of Link, a white dude, who has to save princess Zelda, a white lady, from the villainous, thieving Ganondorf, who is…yeah, you see where this is going. Since the very first Zelda game, the villain has been Ganondorf — and we’re very sorry to do this to you, Zelda fanboys, but Ganondorf is a racist stereotype.

Keep in mind, this isn’t just about one game having one dark-skinned villain- -he’s supposed to be representative of an entire culture. His people, called the “Gerudo,” live in the desert, fight with scimitars and glaives, and oh, they’re all thieves. When you have an entire race depicted as criminals and thieves — and you give that race qualities based on stereotypes of a real world ethnicity — then you’ve dropped the ball somewhere. Somewhere racist. Which is the worst place to drop a ball, because now it’s covered in racism, and that stuff is notoriously hard to wash off.

8. Ghostbusters

In the mid-80s, Activision released a Ghostbusters game for the NES, Atari 2600, Sega Master System and the Commodore 64. It featured…

… three…wait, what? That looks odd for some reason. Let’s compare those Busters to the movie.

Oh, that’s right. There’s four of them. Technological limitations must have gotten in the way. I wonder how they decided which one to cut.

7. Resident Evil 5

When Resident Evil 5 was released in 2009, it attracted some controversy for its gameplay, which is made up entirely of a white guy in Africa gunning down diseased black people (the above clip contains the protagonist shouting “the natives are hostile!”). We almost didn’t throw this one up here, since it got so much press when it first came out — but then we realized that a lot of people really didn’t understand the issue, so let’s take this chance to explain it:

Most of RE5’s imagery and motifs are lifted directly from a real-life tragedy occurring in parts of Africa right now, called the AIDS Epidemic. Most of the imagery in this game (visibly sick Africans, crushing poverty) have entered the cultural mindset because of the growing international concern for this epidemic. It’s fine to draw inspiration for horror from reality (in fact, it’s best to do so) but RE5’s posited solution to this problem is killing everyoneinfected.

Then there’s the difference between this, and previous Resident Evil games. People have argued that, because most of the zombies were white in Resident Evil 1-3, and hispanic in Resident Evil 4, then it’s hypocritical to say it’s only racist when the heroes are killing black people. This argument doesn’t hold up because the United States doesn’t have a history of oppressing and enslaving other white people and, as for the Hispanics well…yeah, that was kind of weird, but Spain doesn’t have the same problem Africa has with being depicted as a war-torn wasteland in American popular culture.

6. Diablo 3

In Blizzard’s latest click-fest, you choose one of five classes to play as you fight the hordes of Hell. And of those five classes, only one is black — the witch doctor. He speaks in a heavy accent, moves around like an animal, comes from the jungle and looks like every stereotypical witch doctor ever. The only thing he doesn’t do is shrink heads and go OOH-EE-OOH-AH-AH-TING-TANG-WALLA-WALLA-BING-BANG, but that’s likely because Blizzard didn’t want to pay the Seville family any royalties.

This one is less “blatantly offensive” and more just “lazy stereotyping.” If you’re not in the gaming community, you may not realize this but Diablo 3 is a really freaking big game. Diablo 1 and 2 are legendary installments in the dungeon-crawler genre, and this latest installment sold 3.5 million units in the first day. It’s a big, popular, fun game.

The weirdest part is that this is a step back from the preceding entries — Diablo 2 featured a black Paladin character that didn’t play off of any stereotypes of preconceptions. Now, with Diablo 3, if you’re a black gamer and you want an avatar who looks like you, the Witch Doctor is your only option. Hope you like piercings!

5. Spanish for Everyone

Some people would argue that, when teaching Spanish, it’s important to teach the horrifically negative stereotypes associated with the language. Those people are idiots, and also apparently responsible for Spanish For Everyone.

Ostensibly a game designed to teach children Spanish, the gameplay is centered around a white protagonist chasing after Miguel (his hispanic friend) who stole his Nintendo DS. Oh, and Miguel’s father is heavily implied to be a druglord. But Spanish does happen! Sometimes.

4. Freaky Flyers

Cartoons live off of the human brain’s ability to recognize patterns. Bugs Bunny looks nothing like a human being, but viewers recognize the pattern of what a smiling, wacky character is supposed to look like, and their brain automatically fills in the rest.

So what happens if you decide that instead of “wacky character” archetypes, you’re going to go with “racist” archetypes? You get…Freaky Fliers. We’re not going to go through a list of everything wrong with this game because we have lots of other things to get to this week, and honestly the gameplay itself doesn’t matter. We’re just going to leave you to watch the above video, about a billionaire oil magnate from Arabia (zillionaire, depending on the current price of oil), named, naturally, Sheik Abdul.

3. Pokemon

Wow. Okay. Jynx, huh? Really…really?! Yeah — that was a bad idea.

2. Mike Tyson’s Punch-Out!!!

Racist Video Game lists are almost irresponsibly incomplete without Mike Tyson’s Punch-Out. This classic NES game tells the story of a plucky little white dude named Lil’ Mac, who fights his way through an army of racist stereotypes so he can unseat Mike Tyson, a black guy with authority. People have written entire articles about the racism in this one game. Our favorites are Piston Honda, the Japanese Samurai boxer, and Bob Charlie, because that’s almost a joke, right?

1. Call of Juarez: The Cartel

While video game advocates would rather focus on the intellectual and artistic potential of video games, there’s really no denying that the industry is far more familiar with exploring the depths of stupidity — and so we come to Call of Juarez.

CoJ: TC is a game about the Mexican Drug War, and it is pretty much the worst thing to have ever happened to the industry. The game caters blatantly to racist stereotypes by building gameplay mechanics that require you to cut-down wave after wave of black and Latino characters, to the point where they lack any semblance of humanity. One level even features a special “achievement” for killing black people, in a level where your goal is to go into a slum and incite gang warfare. The game even decides that sex-slavery is a great topic for it to tackle, as it depicts the tragedy of a bunch of American women being sold to rich Mexicans. Too bad that, in reality, it’s the exact opposite.

Wat a load of crap,like someone else said i think the author is racist and i’ll give you something…..in england we cant teach our children to sing baa baa black sheep which has gone through generations just cos black people decided it was racist yet their is now a kid’s programme which i saw with my little girl and guess wat its a black mouse with a jamaican hat on and speaks jamaican…….? Says it all really dont it cos THATS RACIST but if white people were to do something like that it would’nt be aired,would get a huge fine and probably a short prison sentence but their you go thats life you just get on with it not always looking for things to dub as racist so dont start with all this crap about bloody video games just live ur life without worrying and enjoy yourself and if you think something is racist dont watch or play it SIMPLE lol

I realise this is a long time after you wrote this but I just have to reply.

Get down off you hysterical high horse, it is totally still allowed and normal for baa baa black sheep to be taught in England, there was some stupid controversy that was blown out of proportion by people who wanted to make it seem like you weren’t. If you were silly enough to fall for that then it is YOUR issue.

Next . . . please tale your white opinions and crawl back into whatever hole spawned you. You have zero understanding of anything about the world around you and will clearly listen and believe almost anything that is convenient for you to believe.

Like it or not pal you STILL live in a world where racism is an issue and it will NOT go away until something is done about it. So sure, you go back and fall on the ‘don’t like it, don’t want it!’ pathetic defense that people in denial always do, but that just means you will be dealing with hearing about it longer.

Because people like you slow down progress, more so than openly racist people because you refuse to even look outside your own perspective into the life of another person and see what it is like to be them.

To not be white, to be often inherently seen as not as good, not as beautiful, not as worthy and definitely not as well represented in the media and half of the time when you are the entire personality of a ‘black’ person would be that . . .they are black.

There are things that will never affect you because you’re white and if you want to be oblivious to them forever that is your deal, but don’t expect everyone else to just so you can be as comfortable s possible at the expense of others.

Telling white people to mind their own damn business when it comes to racism is not being a hypocrite. White people do not experience systemic racism and thus their opinions on what is NOT racist are not authoritative, or welcome.

Saying it doesn’t matter because it doesn’t matter to YOU is the height of total, selfish bollocks and people who act and behave that way deserve no credit, no recognition and should not be heard on the matter of race.

…OK. Let’s try something. Make up a life-size mask of Jynx, put it on, and take a stroll through the ‘hood. You can explain that she has awesome psychic and ice moves. Let us know how that works out, Probably by Ouija board….

No normal person walks around with masks on, despite the thing depicted having awesome psychic moves or not. The same weird looks I’d get from a Jins mask I’d get from a Cary Grant mask or from a Whoopi Goldberg one, to name two very different ones.

Maybe where you live people go around wearing masks on their everyday life. Not here, though. I live in Brazil, and in here It’d be considered, at the very least, excentric.

Interesting list didn’t have time to read it completely right now so i’ll probably comment later but i was a bit surprised by your explanations about racism in Resident Evil 5, you said and i quote

“Then there’s the difference between this, and previous Resident Evil games. People have argued that, because most of the zombies were white in Resident Evil 1-3, and hispanic in Resident Evil 4, then it’s hypocritical to say it’s only racist when the heroes are killing black people. This argument doesn’t hold up because the United States doesn’t have a history of oppressing and enslaving other white people”

Do i need to remind you that you are talking about a japanese game and, also that not having a history of oppression with a culture doesn’t make depicting them like stupid rednecks less racist.
Thoughts?

While marginally interesting, most of these items aren’t really racist. The author, like many others these days, seems intent on labeling everything as racist if it has to do with race. I wonder if ‘white men can’t jump’ is racist or, to stay in video games, Soda Popinski or Mario. They’re certainly white stereotypes – drunk russian, Italian plumber with thick accent.

Really, I think this is about an obsession with race by the author, rather than the need for gamers to look inward at their evil brainwashed minds. As true, brutal racism fades from our culture, it’s interesting to watch the obsessed delve deeper into madness. I mean racism has GOT to be the reason for inequality, right?

Oh, completely agreed, and I don’t mean to imply that minorities, in many cases, have a more difficult time than non-minorities, but aside from lingering resentment from idiots, most people are not racists. It is interesting though that the focus is on non-white racism usually, even though whites are not always the discriminators. Doing something for or against any race is, by definition, racist. While not level with one another, affirmative action for blacks and racial epithets against them are both racist. This is important to note in the article because it’s pointed out that resident evil is still racist because the past races haven’t historically been oppressed. What? So, any racism against whites isn’t racist because someone’s great great great grandfather wasn’t a slave?

Haha, did you even read the comment or just ctrl+F for your buzz word. I didn’t say anything about AA other than using it as an example for the fact that promoting or punishing anyone for anything because of their race is what racism is. Some people will never get over the racism issue because they aren’t even able to discuss it without going off the handle. Kind of sad but no worry – people like dpad are a small (but unusually loud and talkative) group.

Aside from the entire premise of this list, I take special concern with number 7; in particular, your quote that reads as follows:

“This argument doesn’t hold up because the United States doesn’t have a history of oppressing and enslaving other white people…”

As a matter of fact, one of the early “races” to be oppressed were the Irish. They were looked down upon with extreme prejudice. There were signs (just like with African Americans) telling them they were not allowed into establishments, allowed to hold any job other than hard-labor, spit on, had to use separate facilities and in general…very much hated. Granted, they weren’t enslaved, but the issue stands…white people of Irish ancestry were very much hated at the time.

I could take issue with the way my people (Arabs) are treated throughout the world, but what good does that do? I’m not going to change who I am just because of a few ignorant people; and I’m certainly not going to sink to their level and cry ‘racism’ or write anything propagating ‘reverse racism’ as done in this article. But…good job putting something out. I wasn’t a fan but I’m sure there’s plenty who liked it. Good job.

The only ones that could be considered racist are 10, 5, and 2. Why is making a video game fitting common stuff in society racist? Who own most of the oil? Middle easterners, and they all have names close to that. That’s like Saudi Arabia making a NASCAR video game and making guys named billy Johnson… If the gave them names like LeBron oligawan it just wouldn’t fit at all.

I think labeling some of these games racist is a little harsh… maybe it’s just a little insensitive but I have a hard time imagining the developers of Resident Evil, a highly popular game saying, “well less address AIDs, and show suffering Africans and maybe we can tie it in with Apartheid themes or something!”… no way, I guarantee the pitching of the game went something like this, “lets make a new resident evil game… but where is a new, unique location to set it that hasn’t been seen in any other RE games?… how about Africa!”

I just don’t think things are racist if the creators didn’t intend them to be… they are just insensitive and ignorant… that being said, the African location for RE5 ruled, all those shanty towns were creepy as hell and it allowed for lots of great mutated animal boss battles. I guess the game never came off racist to me cause I dont think that deep into it… i see a suffering African, vomiting and mutation in the game and I think, “oh s**t he is gonna turn into a zombie!” not “oh s**t, he has… AIDS… obviously, because he’s African”

I haven’t played the majority of these games so I won’t comment on them, however calling RE5 racist, and your reasoning behind it, is bull.

As some one stated above white have oppressed whites, though this hardly matters as research would show you the game’s creators are Japanese. Japanese! Yeah the hero happens to be white, and yeah the heroine happens to be black, yet because one of them are white it’s racist? If anything I’m surprised that RE5 didn’t come out sooner. Besides the obvious metaphor of the birthplace of humans giving birth to this new form humanity/monstrosity Africa would be one of the most vulnerable places to a fast spreading infection due to poor sanitation throughout many countries not to mention general lack of modern technology in many villages. In a place where getting water is a daily struggle do you think they have good forms of communication or health care? While some of your calls of racist might hold true your attacks on RE5 are grasping at straw and holds only the veneer of logic. Good day sir.

The RE franchise is about killing infected people who are incurable zombies. the game is not about a World Health Organization team that goes to Africa to heal the sick, that game would be the most boring thing ever. On a side note most of the people who go to Africa in real life to care for the sick and dying are WHITE.

3 out of 10 items on this list could be legitimate, but the others just seem like tenuous links to shout racism.

as for this comment in number 10;

“If you’re keeping track, that’s exactly how stupid white
people who have never met a black person think black
people act.”

Come stop by the Dayton, Ohio area. A majority of black women I meet speak and act like that.

If you want to talk racist games how about Custer’s revenge, the GTA series, Mario, or the truly racist game ethnic cleansing. People are so quick to say something is racist now it just makes them look stupid.

Cutting Winston Zeddemore from Ghostbusters for the NES, SMS, C64 and Atari 2600 was likely a technical issue concerning memory rather than straight up racism. Even if they cut one of the white guys and put Zeddemore in, they would have had to make a separate sprite for him and that takes up memory. Memory for those systems was scarce enough from the get-go, so what seems like a simple palette swap would have required cutting something else from the game.

the fact that Punch Out! is racist in part because you work your way up to a black guy of authority..let me remind you that, at the time, Mike Tyson was the World Heavyweight Champion and was arguably called the “baddest man on the planet”…of course he’s going to be the ultimate boss fight in a boxing game for Little Mac to try to defeat….and further proof of that?….once Tyson showed his mortality and lost to Buster Douglas, they changed the final boss to a white guy named Mr. Dream…also..you mentioned Piston Honda as a racist character…he was listed as from Japan and spoke Japanese between rounds…how is that racist?..to me that’s being true to his heritage..i think you got this one completely wrong..in my opinion of course

“If you’re keeping track, that’s exactly how stupid white people who have never met a black person think black people act.”

And this is how just plain stupid people think that have never been anywhere.

I have lived in a majority black county for almost my entire 30+ years and although not every black person acts in this stereotypical manner, there are tons that do. So, it has nothing to do with “stupid white people”. Stereotypes exist for a reason…….because most of the time if you step back and stop being so PC, they are true.

When you use the word “true”, you make it sound like the stereotype applies to all. I’m not sure which race you are, but I know you wouldn’t be singing that same tune if I were to assume you were a certain negative stereotype just because people of the same race as you are that way. You shouldn’t have a default judgement of a certain group. That’s unfair and foolish.

It doesn’t matter if you’ve been around a ton of black people all your life or if you have only seen black people on TV. And how dare you use that in a way to defend your argument. You haven’t been around the globe to determine whether most black people fit the stereotypes or not. And to be technical, black people are all over the world. And these are American stereotypes. So to paint black people all across the land with silly American stereotypes is insane.

All stereotypes against all groups of people need to go. They’re disgusting and they cripple us mentally. Truth = factual. So, a true “stereotype” would mean that it applies to all. It’d no longer be a stereotype, it’d be a fact about a race. Stereotypes technically don’t originate from truth.

That you think of it as such speaks volumes, but I respect your right to judge it thusly, even whilst disagreeing with you. I don’t blame you if such things you’d rather not think about make you uncomfortable. You must be fortunate enough not to have to deal with such ignorance directed towards you. How fortunate. (-_-;)

You must be fortunate enough to come from an ethnostate where you can go live and be surrounded by nothing but other Japanese people that look just like you and have the same culture… where you can be free from “racist oppression” and “systemic racism” along with “micro-aggressions” in a lovely “safe space”… but if you’re living in the wrong country right now, where you do not belong and complaining about it… It’s your own damn fault.

im gonna have to dissagree with diablo 3. First reason being im not black and i play a witchdoctor because it most resembles the necro from diablo2 and its really awsome. second being that the archangel tyreal is a black guy in the game and he has allways been the coolest npc.

#9 is a silly complaint too. OK, I get the racism angle if Gannon and his crew are always the bad guys. But what about games where Orcs are the badguys? Isn’t that the same thing? Hey, Metal Gear Solid 3 hates Russians! WH40K hates Orks! WoW hates Orks! Orks are a metaphor for black people, or something. Whatever.

The GTA games fit this. Also, I noticed in IV that all the “black” female characters are made to look very unattractive compared to their lighter-skinned counterparts, whether they’re on the dating site, prostitutes, or wherever. It’s not like it’d make things better if they were more attractive, but I noticed that motif.

“If you’re keeping track, that’s exactly how stupid white people who have never met a black person think black people act.”
If you wanna go after something stereotypical, Tell Tyler Perry to stop making Madea movies

you forgot a few, like def jam icon which is all blacks pretty much, def jam rapstar,def jam fight for ny, def jam vendetta, 50cent blood in the sand and 50 cent bulletproof, or does racism only exist when its amount of whites over blacks.. guess that would explain why I’ve been called a cracker so many times and nothing done about it but if i use the N word all hell breaks loose, seems like they are the ones racist not us.

Funny, since Dead rising 2 was created by the Japanese, you then say thats how white people view black people. Hmmm… seems to me your racist , as how do you think japanese people started thinking that way? white people told them so and then the Japanese are so stupid they believe anything they hear? You seem racist for making that comment altogether.

Half of the listed games are actually made by the Japanese. 😛 They live in a fairly monoethnic society, so they barely have any sensitivity to such issues. Even so, I think most of the examples listed are plain silly and not actually racist.

I have an idea for you, lets just take out Black people altogether from videogames? will that solve the issue for you? your finding racism in the dumbest places. Your pointing out that japanese games like zelda (ASIAN characters not white!) are white and racist against ganon whos darker skinned?? Ganon was a pig! Ganon lives in darkness thus hes dark skinned, your quite the genious. So its okay to have white characters as bad guys but not black? If they made a Videogame like Call of duty style with African government soldiers killing african Gorillas would their be racism their as well or would your little head explode?

Okay, I know you posted this last year, but that’s EXACTLY what happened for one of the Call of Duty Black Ops 2 missions. Africans vs Africans. Though you were a USA Black Ops Agent… still, oddly foretelling.

so when resident evil 4 came out, a white character killing wave after wave of hispanic people who speak, scream and yell in spanish? oh wait, how about assassins creed where you kill middle eastern people or, gasp, WHITE PEOPLE? the setting for resident evil 5 is in freaking AFRICA. WHO DO YOU EXPECT TO SEE IN AFRICA? WHITE BOYS?? ROFL at these idiots who cry ‘racism’ in a video game. and killing white people is perfectly fine with them

Russians aren’t a race. And I do believe toptenz are a little too fast to drop the ‘R bomb’. Especially RE5, that one really bothers me. It’s staged in Africa, what were they supposed to do. The RE4 one is stupid aswell. It’s staged in Spain. Spaniards are not latinas, they’re caucasian…. Just like Russians.

This type of anti-white SJW crap in the article and in these comments… is why the Alt-Right is growing so fast. Thanks guys! You’ve done such a great job at alienating white people (particularly males) and accusing them of “systemic racism” and “white privilege” that they’ve just about had enough and are ready to have white ethnostates.